Thursday, August 04, 2011

The Importance of Risk-taking in Teaching & Learning

The study of around 100 semiconductor and related companies revealed that when companies double down on Research & Development, the effort “leads to just a 22.5% increase in new-product announcements.”

The language in the interpretation of this study (“leads to just...”) implies this is not an acceptable return on investment. One person I can think who might beg to differ is baseball player Ken Griffey, Jr. Had The Kid been able to reap a 22.5% benefit from putting twice as much into R&D on his home run swing, he would have retired with 771 career home runs, 9 more than all-time leader Barry Bonds (Hmmm...). One man's interpretation of diminishing returns is another's immortal legacy.

How does this relate to teaching and learning?

Research & Development are closely tied to risk-taking. As an educator, I am constantly challenging my students to push themselves in the 21st Century Skill of risk-taking, a key force behind invention, innovation and, I believe, general success in 2011 and beyond. Risk-taking is the lone subjective component found in every rubric students receive in my class - to the tune of at least 20% of the total grade. Risk-taking is also the only way a student may earn extra credit on any given assignment. It is one way of showing the students the floor and not the ceiling: show students the ceiling of expectations and some heads may bump the fan; show students only the floor and some will touch the clouds.

None of you are risk takers...as soon s you provide a rubric there is no risk taking....they know how to please the teacher and geta grade. Take a risk yourselves and let them work on whatever they want to work on!

@Fawn Only you and your students will know what works best for your learning environment. My suggestion is to introduce the rubric before each assignment and solicit from students THEIR ideas of what would demonstrate risk-taking. In other words, they provide the "look fors" (though I will add to this list if I believe there are additional risk-taking opportunities they do not mention). At the end of the day however, the teacher is making a subjective judgement call; consider providing students with opportunities for input either through self-assessment or an open door policy in which they are comfortable approaching you with their disagreements in how they were assessed.

@Norman Thanks for taking the time to comment and for feeling comfortable to disagree in this space. Two questions: Is the student behavior manifested in "please the teacher and get a grade" necessarily a product of using rubrics? Can we both encourage risk-taking AND be transparent with students about expectations or are these two aims mutually exclusive and incompatible?

Rubrics tell you how to score well i.e. please the teacher, with rubrics the audience is reduced to the teacher because the teacher is the only one you are writing or producing for. There is no risk. I think they are exclusive and incompatible with risk taking.

No one should ever feel uncomfortable about disagreeing in any space and especially with their teacher...unless of course it is not part of the rubric!

Noah, Great post. I love the last "show students the ceiling of expectations and some heads may bump the fan; show students only the floor and some will touch the clouds." So very true and so much more important in helping students see themselves as more than just another cog in the wheel. Norman brings up a good point, but I hope that we can find creative and independent thought inducing ways to figure out how to "assess" meaningful and real outcomes in ways that do not lead students to merely "please the teacher." That is the challenge I guess. A challenge that teachers like you Noah will rise to. Good luck and keep up the great work.

@Mark thanks for the support Mark... real assessment comes from the audience that you are producing for...if they read it (use it) that is positive assessment....if the audience does not like it that is a negative assessment....when we pass the assessment to the student audience we lose all control over the assignment and hence all of our power. There is nothing wrong with influencing the course of the work but to state what it should be controlled with rubrics is tyranny...

It seems that well-written rubrics are a step above traditional close-ended assessments. What if students and teachers developed rubrics together? Students should also take an active role in peer evaluations, based on the rubrics they helped to design. My colleagues and I have tried this approach with middle-schoolers, with some success. At first it is time consuming but, in the long run, I find that students become more actively engaged when they know their input is included.

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